Sinister Six

Ah, our old friend, the Spider-Man cinematic universe. It seems like just yesterday that pundits were absolutely certain that the upcoming box office success of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 would lead to separate Venom and Sinister Six spin-offs. Then Marvel swooped in with their darn Captain America: Civil War and the future of Spider-Man seemed back up in the air.

Let’s take a brief memory-trip back to the time before last year’s big Sony hack, when the studio had a lot of ambitious and sort of messy plans to rescue their Spider-Man franchise from itself. In addition to potential spinoffs (including an all-female movie and rumors of an Aunt May film), Sony was also planning a Sinister Six film with Drew Goddard writing and directing. Goddard’s project was the only real promising Spidey spinoff of the bunch, and it turns out that it might still see the light of day.

Last year, back when it still seemed possible that Sony may try to continue their Amazing Spider-Man reboot and before they teamed with Marvel to relaunch Spidey in a new film series that will connect with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ScreenCrush Editor-in-Chief Mike Sampson and I put together a list of ten directors we thought could save the Spider-Man franchise. One name we both immediately thought belonged on the list was Drew Goddard, the man who directed The Cabin in the Woods and was then slated to direct the Amazing 2 spinoff The Sinister Six.

We always suspected this day would come; our Supermovies Infographic is actually shrinking. The announcement of a new deal between Sony and Marvel over the Spider-Man movies, which sees Spider-Man integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe but still under Sony's control, has not only bumped a lot of release dates back to avoid a Marvel/Sony showdown, but has also pushed at least a couple of films off the chart completely.

After the news that Marvel and Sony had come to an agreement to co-produce a new series of ‘Spider-Man’ movies, while also introducing the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one of the items we immediately turned our attention to was Sony's planned ‘Sinister Six’ spinoff, which was deep into development and was teased all through last summer’s ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2.’ Director Drew Goddard (‘The Cabin in the Woods’) had been working on the film since last year (he even left Netflix’s ‘Daredevil’ series to focus on it) with a November 2016 release date planned. The future of that film seemed very tenuous this morning following the big announcement, but now comes news that the film is still in development at Sony.

Even before Sony was hacked and we got a look at their e-mails regarding Spider-Man, we knew that the company was scrambling to figure out what to do with the web-slinging hero. After talks with Marvel for a potential crossover with the character fizzled, it seemed as though Sony was focusing their energies on Spidey spin-offs and putting plans for ‘Amazing Spider-Man 3' on hold, perhaps indefinitely. But according to a new casting call, it looks like Sony might be moving ahead with the third installment in the underwhelming franchise after all.

It’s been a really rough time for Sony as the studio’s e-mails and sensitive materials have been hacked by a mysterious group, and confidential details have been leaking left and right. The latest pieces of information picked up from Sony’s hacked internal e-mails have to do with Spider-Man—a character that’s in a bit of flux right now as Sony has been trying to sort out what to do next following the critical and commercial disappointment of ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2.’ As it turns out, Sony has indeed spoken with Marvel about a potential crossover, and that’s not all they’ve been planning to salvage the character.

ScreenCrush’s Comic Strip is a weekly roundup of the hottest superhero movie/TV news items. From Marvel to DC and points in between, if it pertains to costumed comic book heroes, we’re covering it here, bringing you our expert analysis. This week, the new Batmobile and 'Avengers 2' plot synopsis are revealed, the Howling Commandos return (on TV), and Andrew Garfield calls out Sony on the failure of 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2.'

The 'Sinister Six' movie was recently bumped up in the timeline so that it will be the next 'Spider-Man' universe movie, coming before 'Amazing Spider-Man 3' and not after, as was originally planned. Director Marc Webb thought while he was making 'Amazing Spider-Man 2' that he'd have another film to build the Sinister Six, but he won't have that luxury. That said, he did talk quite a bit on the 'ASM2' audio commentary about the future of the franchise, including some words about which Spider-Man villains would be appearing as the Sinister Six.

Spider-Man is about to face his most "sinister" challenge yet! No, we're not talking about the logline for 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2.' We're referring to the fact that the movie universe is about to branch out into a slew of spinoffs, including ones for 'Venom,' a female-led film, and, of course, the 'Sinister Six.' A recent teaser for the upcoming Blu-ray release of 'Spider-Man 2' hit the web, hinting at what we can expect from the ultimate villain team-up through new concept art.